Researchers tested 14 sorts of masks — here are the ones that worked and didn’t

Researchers tested 14 sorts of masks — here are the ones that worked and didn’t

Bandannas, gaiters and knitted masks are probably the least viable face covers for forestalling the spread of coronavirus, as per another investigation.

Analysts at Duke University made the revelation while testing 14 different types of masks, as indicated by the investigation published Friday.

N95 masks, frequently utilized by healthcare experts, worked best to stop the transmission of respiratory droplets during regular speech.

Other great performers at halting leakage were three-layer surgical masks and cotton masks, which can be made at home, the specialists with Duke’s physics department found.

Yet, while bandannas and knitted face covers might be an exceptional look, they didn’t offer a lot of insurance, as per the examination.

The researchers likewise found that neck fleeces, or neck gaiters, often worn by runners, were the least successful and really permitted more respiratory droplets to escape than not wearing a mask at all.

That is on the grounds that they were appeared to separate bigger droplets into smaller particles, permitting them to slip out the sides of the covering all the more without any problem.

“We were extremely surprised to find that the number of particles measured with the fleece actually exceeded the number of particles measured without wearing any mask,” Martin Fischer, one of the study’s authors told CNN.

“We want to emphasize that we really encourage people to wear masks, but we want them to wear masks that actually work.”

To test the masks, the researchers utilized a black box outfitted with a laser and a mobile phone camera.

Somebody wearing a face mask would talk toward the laser beam inside the box. At that point, the measure of respiratory droplets dissipated by the beam were recorded by the camera in the rear of the box.

A computer algorithm at that point included the droplets found in the video to decide what number of had leaked through.

The scientists said this was a low-cost, compelling technique to test which face covers worked and which didn’t.

“This is a very powerful visual tool to raise awareness that a very simple masks, like these homemade cotton masks, do really well to stop the majority of these respiratory droplets,” Fischer told CNN.

“Companies and manufacturers can set this up and test their mask designs before producing them, which would also be very useful.”